Top all-time · #9552
a CONS is an object which cares
Personal blog · carcaddar.blogspot.comprogrammingphilosophy
a CONS is an object which cares is a personal blog at carcaddar.blogspot.com about programming and philosophy. Since 2009, 8 different Hacker News readers have linked it 33 times, most often “Continuation-based web applications: just say no”. The last post was in 2018, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (1) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog's post arguing that Common Lisp is the best language to learn programming. The only comment cites it as a source for recommending Common Lisp learning resources.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 1 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Continuation-based web applications: just say no2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-06-10
What Hacker News says?
Here is an example of a DSL I made in Common Lisp for doing compile-time URL checking in a web application: http://carcaddar.blogspot.com/2008/11/compile-time-inter-app... Common Lisp makes it easy to compose DSLs so it was trivial to apply the URL checking DSL to the JavaScript generating DSL (Parenscript) and have the browser-side code checked at compile time as well. Another good example is CLiki2: https://github…
Comment linking /2008/11/compile-time-inter-application-uri-link.html
on “The Idea of Lisp”Submitted Common Lisp is the best language to learn programming as a story · 98 points
HN discussion"And as you go up in your levels of abstraction, it gets harder and harder to really understand what's going on." There is a difference between abstraction and indirection. Just because you've added the latter doesn't mean you've gained any of the former. "Sure, some macros are intuitive and easy to follow, but those are usually easily replicated with other things, especially in a dynamic language like Python." How…
Comment linking /2008/11/compile-time-inter-application-uri-link.html
on “Ask PG: Lisp vs Python (2010)”Submitted Eager Future for Common Lisp as a story · 18 points
HN discussionThat list is way too long. JavaScript isn't that big or complicated, even if you include DOM and cross-browser issues (which by virtue of continuous browser changes, you will never learn about from a book). My top 3: 1. Eloquent JavaScript 2. JavaScript the Good Parts 3. High Performance JavaScript (see my review: http://carcaddar.blogspot.com/2010/07/book-review-nicholas-c... ) Also, I wouldn't recommend either of…
Comment linking /2010/07/book-review-nicholas-c-zakas-high.html
on “What to Read to Get Up to Speed in JavaScript”Submitted WebRTC and the File API: web browser is now a virtualized OS as a story · 15 points
HN discussionKay is greatly exaggerating those figures, and tends to blame problems with the modern software stack on the hardware. Dan Ingalls gave a talk in 2005 about the history of Smalltalk implementations in which he mentioned the Xerox NoteTaker. The NoteTaker was a PC powered by the 8086, and according to Ingalls executed Smalltalk VM bytecode at twice the speed of the Alto. Here is the link to the talk: http://www.youtu…
Comment linking /2012/01/personal-computer-youve-never-heard-of.html
on “Lisp Machines”Submitted Lisp linkdump, March 2011 edition. as a story · 5 points
HN discussionIt's possible to mitigate HTTP session hijacking without resorting to SSL: http://carcaddar.blogspot.com/2010/10/protect-flock-or-how-t... It's not really viable to serve most things over HTTPS because there's no hope of caching anywhere but at the end-point (and that's usually disabled by default, too).
Comment linking /2010/10/protect-flock-or-how-to-mitigate.html
on “Firesheep usage leads to Idiocy”Submitted Please critique my crypto proposal for decentralized web app logins as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThis (#doesNotUnderstand:) is not very widely known but extremely important: http://carcaddar.blogspot.com/2009/04/closure-oriented-metap... http://people.csail.mit.edu/gregs/ll1-discuss-archive-html/m...
Comment linking /2009/04/closure-oriented-metaprogramming-via.html?showComment=1239507240000
on “Kay on the Meaning of "Object-Oriented Programming"”Submitted Programmer myopia as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI would hack on and port apps to https://sandstorm.io/ Last week, before I found out about Sandstorm, I would have said work on this: http://carcaddar.blogspot.com/search/label/ClearSky - I sketched out some ideas for how to apply current cryptographic techniques in new ways and use WebRTC to make a P2P social network that would still address scenarios like logging in and having access to your data from random libra…
Comment linking /search/label/ClearSky
on “Ask HN: What project would you work on if you had half a year of free time?”Submitted The Cloud, SaaS, source code escrow, and the Affero GPL as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> Macros allow you to easily improve your syntax, but offer less guidance for improving your semantics. This IMO is the biggest problem with macro usage today and needs to be overcome. I've started a campaign against the "macros are syntactic sugar, and I have a sweet tooth!" camp ( http://carcaddar.blogspot.com/2010/08/input-needed.html ). I recommend reading this excellent parody blog post (written at the height o…
Comment linking /2010/08/input-needed.html
on “Of Lisp Macros and Washing Machines”Submitted Xerox NoteTaker: the PC you've never heard of as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI wrote a review a couple of years ago: http://carcaddar.blogspot.com/2009/04/review-let-over-lambda... Chapters 7 and 8 haven't been posted online; it's worth purchasing the book to read them.
Comment linking /2009/04/review-let-over-lambda.html
on “Let Over Lambda—50 Years of Lisp”Submitted Implications of self-driving cars as a story · 2 points
HN discussionA vote for "Common Lisp [as] the best language to learn programming": "Between Land of Lisp, David Touretzky's Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation (really great book for people new to programming, available for free) and The Little LISPer (3rd edition, editions four and up use Scheme) you have three really great resources to get started." https://carcaddar.blogspot.com/2011/10/common-lisp-is-b…
Comment linking /2011/10/common-lisp-is-best-language-to-learn.html
on “Sugar – a typed lispy language targeting webasm/wat”Submitted Continuation-based web applications: just say no as a story · 2 points
HN discussion"No, I mean session management. Example of anemia: it offers no way to back sessions by persistent storage." The session protocol is a bit awkward in that you need to implement all of it if you want to change only a small part, but it's there to be hooked into, which is what the frameworks built on top of Hunchentoot do. The support is there to have persistent session objects, you just need to find something that do…
Comment linking /2009/03/p-cos-blew-my-mind.html
on “Ask HN: Modern approach to web application development with Common Lisp”Submitted Continuation-based web applications: just say no as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThe reason you can do metaprogramming with blocks in Smalltalk and not most other "OO" languages is that Smalltalk is based on message-passing, and you have control over how objects interpret messages sent to them. Specifically, the doesNotUnderstand method is equivalent to having a fully late-bound APPLY in Lisp (which means you can implement FEXPRs yourself when you need them, and FEXPRs are as good as CL or Schem…
Comment linking /2009/04/closure-oriented-metaprogramming-via.html?showComment=1239507240000
on “While writing YAQL I accidentally discovered Lisp”Submitted Academic publishing is a scam as a story · 2 points
HN discussionDave started considering the idea of dual-licensing Genworks in 2010, we corresponded about it for a while (I pretend to know things about Free Software licenses on my blog and was advocating for AGPL dual-licensing around that time: http://carcaddar.blogspot.com/2010/11/free-software-license-... ), and Dave released the AGPL version at the European Common Lisp Meeting in 2011. Dave Cooper does a lot of great work i…
Comment linking /2010/11/free-software-license-onion.html
on “Automated CAD”Submitted Put JavaScript in your Lisp and Emacs in your JavaScript as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIt's going to be very difficult to provide the same things Facebook does in a decentralized way (I've thought about the problems around such a project a lot and written up my ideas for an approach in a series of blog posts at http://carcaddar.blogspot.com/search/label/ClearSky - I've outlined the big problems and proposed workable solutions for all of them, but the implementation is difficult and will be hard to get…
Comment linking /search/label/ClearSky
on “Unstoppable file-sharing network ‘Tribler’ spells trouble for copyright holders”Submitted SOPA, Luddites, and broken windows as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThere's been a lot of "programming is a creative pursuit" analogies (I'm guilty of blogging about it as well: http://carcaddar.blogspot.com/2011/04/programming-is-creativ... ). The motivational factors and work styles are similar, but I think the arguments for it being like painting or like writing are unconvincing. I've come to the conclusion that what programming is really most like is analytic philosophy. The key…
Comment linking /2011/04/programming-is-creative-pursuit.html
on “Programming is just like writing”Submitted Closure-oriented metaprogramming as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
